Friday, July 10, 2009

Lovely Locks!

A couple of months ago Techpriest and I went to the Kansas Sampler Festival, where towns, attractions, areas of Kansas can set up a booth and tell you all about themselves.  There are also vendors, bands, storytellers, etc.  It's fun.  The sports car club Techpriest is a member of had a booth and in the same tent was a museum that had a guy(Garry) demonstrating spinning.  So I took my spinning wheel and had a good ole time.  We have since started a spinning group up in Minneapolis (KS!), there is only 4 of us, but it is fun.  It is only once a month, but since it is an hour away that works out good.  Gerry has a small yarn shop we meet in. The 2 guys have actually been spinning longer than the 2 girls! Garry has been spinning since 1973, one year before I was born!

Garry and I went to Abilene in June to an Alpaca Fiber festival.  There was only about 7 alpaca breeders, but there was a good selection and it was all good stuff! After much dithering, I bought a 2.5 lb fleece, for cheap too!  It was  just the blanket (back and sides) so it doesn't have much vm in it.  I'm in the process of carding it.  It only needs to be passed through twice. It is still dusty, but I'll wait to wash it after I spin it, much easier. 



Lady had to sniff it, probably has never smelled Alpaca before! Also shows scale. That's a big bag!

See that chestnut brown? It is beautiful.


Add closer...
Gorgeous locks!

Here is the lastest I've dyed and carded.  Already shipped off for a swap on craftster, will be getting a package of fiber in return here shortly.


1st side of 2 batts of woodland faerie.


2nd side.


Smoke on the Water. There is enough green in there that it should probably be Smoke on the Algae Covered Water, but oh well, I didn't want to think up a different name. 

I sold one skein of yarn at the store, helped me buy some more fiber! Once I get some more spun up I might try selling on Etsy. Just got an order in from Sheep Shed Studio.  Really good prices.  Bought 2 lbs of superwash and a pound of white mill end rovings.  Dyed 8 oz of the superwash today for another swap. 

I just bought a Flickr pro account so all my pictures can be seen again.  I know I haven't shown any of my yarns on here, but they are all on flickr.  I have a picture of my wheel in there too, which if I haven't mentioned it, I love! 

Well, that's all for now, take care all!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Craft Video

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this.



Monday, May 25, 2009

Hello, Blogosphere? It's me, Faren.

Hi guys, Dana was wondering how I was doing, so I thought I would let you all know that I was still alive.  Last time I posted was in September, time sure does fly, doesn't it?  Still reading all your blogs, just don't have the brainpower to string words together to comment.  

At the end of September I was approved for Disability, so in October I went to Chicago to the Diamond Headache Clinic to see if they could help with these damn headaches. I stayed in the hospital for a week.  Had a great view of the lake.  They doped me up with Methadone (which Heroin addicts use to get off it), still had the headache, but didn't really care that I had one. I was totally out of it though.  Techpriest said we had the same conversion three times, once by phone, then by email, then once again by phone just to make sure he was really bored.  The doctor put me on new meds, which helped some.  Went back in January and tried Botox, it helps some people with headache, but not me.  Overall it was a crapshoot.  Medicare did pay for most of the hospital stay, but we were still out a heck of a lot of money for not much of nothing.

There for awhile I wasn't going to knit night, just didn't feel up to driving 30 min each way.  Haven't really been knitting much either.  I have been spinning a lot though.  Managed to spin some sock yarn so I started knitting some socks for me.  This is the first yarn I've kept for myself since the first yarn I spun so long ago (blogged about two posts ago!) I've made much improvement.  Check out my flickr if you want to look at them.  A lot of my yarn I've swapped on Craftster, I've gotten a lot of great stuff that way.  Last Wednesday I did manage to go to knit night, because I wanted to drop off a bunch of yarn for them to sell! Well, hopefully it will sell.  We will see. 

On the animal front, before we went to Chicago our upstairs neighbors abandoned they two cats on the porch.  One was a kitten and one was full grown.  So we decided it would be much easier to find homes for the two kittens and just keep Zoey and Lady, which is short for old lady she acted so old.  She wouldn't jump on anything, wouldn't play at all.  She is much better now so we have to wonder if it was abandonment issues.  

Well, that seems like all my brain can string together, so I better get out of here.  Take care everyone!